Deepest
by Aurora-Borealis Coyote
Summary: There's something all too familiar about Mikage, but for now, Shiori doesn't care- this is her duel to finish and her revolution to claim.


**So I always had wondered about Mikage's relations with the Black Rose duelists outside of what had been shown…and even with all of the parallels between Mikage and Utena, I really wonder how someone like Shiori would perceive him. I ended up thinking that Shiori would connect Mikage to Juri in her head…**

**Shiori's perspective is interesting but I found her a bit tricky. This is the first story I've written for Utena…**

**Not quite a pairing story, but you could take it as ShiorixMikage.**

_Deeper,_ he had said, but she hadn't thought she could, she had thought that her spoken realization had put her down so deep already, so deep that she had hit a further bottom than she knew. But he couldn't know, and somehow it seems like he does.

In a way, he reminds her just the slightest bit at some distinct, bizarre moments (and those come often) of _her_. As if he wants to learn all there is in her to use as information, as if he's so detached from her that she can't make any effects one way or another-

_But I can, Juri, I _am

_Oh. Mikage. Given the chance, would you be not so different from her?_

"You act like you've never _wanted_ anything," she says. If she really tried, she figures she can provoke him, to do what, she isn't sure. It wouldn't be a good idea, she figures, but she knows that there are worse ideas than testing the unknown. She won't let anyone get to her now.

He doesn't answer her. (what if I told you to go deeper would you she wouldn't she already has though, if I burned deeper into you would you be gone from me?) Either he doesn't care (what do you care about anyway there's got to be a reason for this) or- and she's no stranger to questions- he doesn't want to answer. (I didn't want to answer at first but I did, I had to, I had to know so I could be more and you know that.)

She narrows her eyes, and slides her hand over the rose on her chest. "This black rose…" the pads of her fingertips rub over the petals. "What will it mean to me?"

_You even smell like her all of those roses_

_I wanted to _tear it from her chest _don't you know now_

"You'll see," he says, and she can see his arm tensely folding against his chest. "You'll be a part of the world revolution if it all goes as planned."

She stares at the brightness of his hair, the way his face tilts away, but there is no desire she can sense in him and it's _got _to be there-

She'll win, though. "It should, shouldn't it?" she almost asks, not wanting a real answer. _She'll _see. Whatever he wants from this…revolution, she'll be satisfied with less. She's here.

_But why are you here? Who are you?_

_I can barely read your _kindness _if that's what you think it is_

_What are you really planning? This will be a good idea, right?_

So calm and contemplating you are, she thinks, you just think I'm some kind of means to an end but I'm winning for me, for my own gains- her mouth is curled in an unsatisfied grin, unwavering eyes.

"You can revolutionize the world," he continues, (_you're doing this on purpose aren't you?) _"But you must have your dueling sword. You'll get one." But he doesn't explain. She can't make him talk.

"And then what?" she asks, not expecting an adequate answer, not even any answer, but she's never really had high expectations anyway.

He closes his eyes, and his hand as if he's reaching for something he doesn't know how to find, and his face serenely goes blank of expression as he touches the black rose on his coat. "Eternity," he says, "do you know what it is?" she can almost sense sharp longing buried in his coldly stated rhetoric, but she could be wrong. She's learned to listen and listen well- perceptiveness, as _she _had proved to her, is necessary.

_Eternity? What kind of ideas are these anyway? _Miraculous. _Just like something she'd say. _

She imagines the hilt of a sword gripped in her hand- her hand, strong and lean and sure. _I'll use you for me, all for me, meant for me,_ she thinks, _this _duel's_ been going on long enough. _

_Xx_

She comes back later with the sword that had torn itself from _her _chest, as _she_ had fallen to the ground, shocked and helpless and silent, and those _curls _had gone in all directions and she finally felt it- ultimate victory, and of course, she'd take it again.

_Juri _is hers, it seems to her now. Not that she wasn't at all- _I know your secret_- those swords and roses are here for reasons, and she can benefit. Hers to conquer, hers to prove herself to.

She can smell roses on the sword.

"I went _deeper_," she tells him, eyes widened in what she could either imagine to be surprise or fulfilled ecstasy. And he tilts his head as if he's never known what it feels like to win over someone else at last.

"You succeeded?" he asks, clarifying, still and she almost wants to know what would happen if she tore that black rose from him, what he'd do, what would happen when the world revolutionizes itself, whatever that means to him because her world's revolution is just starting- would he fight her back or would he ever just fall down as it had come from him like a weapon. (_what's inside you? Someone must be meant to know_.)

_You're just a bit like her,_ she thinks, _and that's too much, you expect greater than there is_ even though she sees greatness but she doesn't leave. "No, not deeper," she says, almost to herself, "I'm going deepest."

He doesn't move, except his eyes, which widen in a way that she knows is significant, but otherwise, his face is still as apathetic as always. But after a moment, it is as if he had never heard anything she had said at all. As if he had never reacted, which really, he hadn't. He's not memorable, not in the long run- but she can be. She already is. (_has anyone gone deeper in you?_ She wonders. _How could you have found me like this otherwise?_)

"I see," he says. "You won't be going back from there now."

_You sound like her_

But she doesn't want to go back, anyway, and he probably can't. But more importantly, this is her garden of black roses to plant now, isn't it?

_And you can help me dig deeper, and I'll bury what needs to be lost, and I don't care about delusions like eternity or miracles right now, I'm getting what I need.)_

She looks into his eyes, and she looks _deeper_, the way she looks to _her _but doesn't need to anymore. And his face stays the same, but she isn't. She doesn't feel so down low anymore- she'll just keep going.


End file.
